What PR Courses Actually Need To Teach PR Undergraduates

The public relations industry is changing rapidly. Unfortunately, it looks like PR education is not adapting as fast. In today’s guest post by Ed Zitron, he talks about what students of PR really need to learn to succeed.

In 2005, I took a public relations course at a major state university – PR 101 – and remember the lesson plans clearly:

the history of PR

writing a “communications brief”

writing a press release

press conferences

Eventually, I moved on to further classes. They mostly covered press conferences and “advance communications,” a vague summary of different techniques that you might want to use in general PR… activities.

At no point did the courses actually address the media.

This was nearly a full year before Twitter would launch. Facebook wasn’t available outside of colleges. Jon Gruber had been writing for 3 years, and TechCrunch would launch not too long after. Thus we completely missed a chunk of the “social” aspect that makes up the new world of PR, or indeed the importance of bloggers.

Regardless, reading over current PR courses and many textbooks used in courses, it’s clear PR undergrads are being taught to do things that are not part of most PR people’s days. Yes, it’s very exciting to be taught that you’ll be handling big campaigns, or “handling webinars,” or how important AP Style is (which in the grand scheme of things is mostly irrelevant), or how to handle a press conference — one of the most irrelevant skills that you’ll find before a career in high-end corporate PR.

While it may not be deliberate, this is a horrible misrepresentation of the industry as a whole and is leading students down a dark, dark path. The reason behind the failure at the educational level is simple: Many of these teachers are either not active practitioners, or others are fundamentally not good at major parts of the current world of PR. It’s easy to become obsolete if you’re teaching but not practicing.

After some research, I’ve come up with what I believe are the core elements that need to be applied to just about every PR curriculum. They are:

The Realities of PR

PR is no longer about event management. It is not press conferences. It is not glitz and glamor and fancy parties. At least not initially. The world of PR they are entering is cold, over-staffed, over-worked drudgery. It is mostly behind a computer, and the salaries are lower than ever. It’s potentially immensely lucrative if you become well-connected. It does not start that way.

These core lessons need to be ingested immediately:

The best way to network is to be yourself. It is not to have a personal brand or “love the media.” It’s about being an interesting human being.

Read a lot more. Reading and knowing the news and the world around you is more valuable than being popular on Facebook or loving to party.

PR is not flashy, and you will probably not deal with flashy clients for a long time. Many PR agencies sell themselves as working on huge clients like P&G, Samsung, and Gucci. This is not what most will do initially. They will probably work in small tech firms or with restaurants or with non-profits – immensely demanding clients that will not educate them.

The first years of PR will be a lot of document-writing, package-stuffing and document work. This fact is for some reason completely hidden from new PR professionals.

Media Relations

Many PR professionals on many blogs say media relations isn’t the core of PR. It isn’t a thing that you “have” to do. I’m sorry, but it is. It always will be, especially for new PR people.

The core elements of media relations are:

Researching an outlet and a reporter. This should focus on how to read properly, how to understand and have a rapport with a reporter, and how to understand the structure of each news outlet.

Writing a pitch. This should be taught in such a way as to write a pitch that will work to get a response and what you want, under 150 words. This is a very specific skill that is almost totally diametric to how Public Relations courses are taught.

The difference between a blogger, a reporter and a producer. The first two parts are somewhat blurred these days – a reporter can blog at a newspaper and a blogger can be called a reporter. However these people are fundamentally different and need to be approached in different ways, especially TV and radio producers.

What things are truly newsworthy, and how to actually get reporters to care about them. If a teacher can’t teach this, and teach the reality that many stories are kind of boring, they are not worth their salt.

How to actually talk to a person whom you want to write a story. This is really about not talking to them about anything and getting to know what they want to hear about. Once you know that, you can send it to them. Or not, when you don’t have it.

The Reality of Social Media

Social media is taught in a critically dishonest manner by the education system. It’s really exciting to talk about social media in a way that suggests it’s the new golden goose — that a single tweet can spread your news faster than anything else, and that, you too, could have thousands or millions of followers who will share your news in the most passive and useful manner.

Social media classes need to teach:

How to use Twitter or Facebook or Instagram in a real sense. You should not just be tweeting out endless praise for your company, or how great you are. You should be an honest company or an honest person.

You don’t need always need Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook. There is no actual need to have every company with a social presence. Conversely, for many brick and mortar businesses, such as Angie’s List and Houzz for contractors and service businesses, some social media platforms are incredibly important.

How a real social media following is built through trust and a reason to actually care. If a company or a restaurant or anyone is just spilling out fatuous nonsense about their lives or how great they are, very few people are going to care.

That a social media calendar or strategy can be a waste of time. Mapping out a bunch of tweets or Facebook updates or “special days” for many companies isn’t necessary unless they have an active Facebook or Twitter following.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of everything they should know, but the core problem with PR education is that a 101 class should give the basics — the groundwork from which a real PR professional should theoretically grow. In the same way that pre-med and med schools exist to give the factual and theoretical ideas that will be used in the actual workplace, PR courses need to provide the theoretical foundation and background knowledge today’s PR professionals will need in their day-to-day work.

Ed Zitron is the founder of EZ-PR, a PR and Media Relations company based in New York City and Raleigh, North Carolina. He is also of the author of “This Is How You Pitch: How To Kick Ass In Your First Years of PR,” an Amazon bestseller in the PR category. He has worked with companies large and small, including Target and The Nature Publishing Group, as well as smaller startups and tech figureheads.

Elena is founder of a technology PR agency that works with startups to billion-dollar companies. She is passionate about helping marketers and small business owners with practical publicity strategies, which she's also using for her own bling flip flop company.

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[…] As an undergraduate student, have you ever wondered if what you’re learning in class is applicable to the real world? Ed Zitron, the founder of EZ-PR, examines the typical PR curriculum being taught to undergraduates and suggests the core PR principles students really need to learn in order to succeed in the real world of PR. This week’s blog post comes to us from prinyourpajamas.com. http://prinyourpajamas.com/pr-courses-undergraduates/ […]

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As a current student studying PR, this is a very relevant and helpful article. I am blessed by the knowledge and experience that many of my professors have in the field of PR. With that being said, I agree that it is hard to teach, or learn for that matter, about a subject in which you have no experience. One semester I had a marketing teacher that refused to go over social media marketing at all because she didn’t know anything about computers.

I think it is important to know exactly what you are getting into. Real-world experience should be incorporated into college classes so that nothing is misleading.
Thank you for enlightening me!

As a PR undergrad I COULD NOT possibly love this article any more. This rang so true to so many of the courses I have been taking and since I am a senior I have had time to reflect on what I am actually taking away from my degree at the University of Oregon. I agree with you on so many levels about that new PR employees actually have to do because of internship experience I have had and what is being taught is completely misleading to a lot of people about what tasks they will have when they land that first job. My teachers have done an excellent job at teaching relevant material related to the PR industry and current trends but it has almost gone overboard where some principle elements fundamental to being successful as a practitioner. I can’t believe how many times my assignments have been changed to better represent my work at the university for accreditation purposes rather than for my own benefit as I head into the job hunt. Don’t get me wrong, many of the faculty are very qualified and have taught me useful skills but overall I don’t feel fully prepared for what the PR industry has to offer and as a student paying a lot of money for my education it is very frustrating. I think all PR faculty need to take a look at this blog as a basis of what core learning elements students should be able take away from their course.

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